


Rita Says

by ashen_key



Category: Harry Potter - Fandom
Genre: F/F, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-07
Updated: 2010-07-07
Packaged: 2017-10-10 10:30:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/98760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashen_key/pseuds/ashen_key
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Narcissa is Rita's best friend; partly out of admiration, partly out of morbid curiosity. Set at the end of their time at Hogwarts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rita Says

Narcissa's been told many things over the years. She's been told that she is pretty (too pale, too skinny, too long a nose); she's been told that she is clever (too impulsive, too lazy, too much of a dreamer); she's been told that all she needs to do is try.

She doesn't believe any of it anymore.

-

_Rita Skeeter; fast and mean and slight out of kilter._

_Narcissa Black: shy and kind and an aphrodisiac._

_Rita's always making up little ditties like that, ditties that don't quite rhyme; tapping them out on the table with her long, multicoloured nails. She's a loud girl; loud voice, loud clothes, loud glasses._

_Narcissa is her best friend; partly out of admiration, partly out of morbid curiosity._

_Rita knows this, for Rita is clever and Rita will go far and Rita-_

_-really doesn't give a damn._

-

Sometimes the youngest child has to do as well as an older; sometimes they have to make up for their sibling's mistakes.

Bellatrix: flashy and beautiful, confident and top of the school.

Andromeda: quiet and gorgeous, ambitious and the teenage mother of a Mudblood's brat.

Narcissa: shy and pretty, the dreamer who has to copy and take up the slack at the same time.

Narcissa: always caught somewhere between two opposites; Bellatrix and Andromeda, Mother and Father.

Narcissa: who is quietly falling apart.

-

_Rita says, just ignore the bastards._

_Narcissa says, I can't._

_Rita says, yeah, I know._

_Rita says; Narcissa says; Simon says._

_Rita says, want a cigarette?_

_Narcissa says, all right. _

-

She is quiet and unassuming, so people overlook her. Sometimes she minds, sometimes she does not. Sometimes, she grabs a book and is three-quarters the way through before someone notices.

Regulus says that she would be an excellent Unmentionable, because people would forget she was there and she'd just become part of background. Sirius says she would fit right in because she is so weird.

She smiles at Regulus, and throws her book at Sirius.

She has very good aim.

-

_Rita wants to be a journalist when she gets out of school._

_Why, Narcissa asks._

_Cause then I can gossip all I want and get paid for it, Rita says with an evil grin. I'm going to start a Hogwarts newsletter, my darling girl (Rita always talks like that, Narcissa has learned to ignore it), just for practice. How's this for a title, **James and Sirius: Just Best Friends?**_

_Narcissa says without thinking, but I thought Sirius was in love with Remus._

_Rita stares and Rita grins and Rita says, I love you._

_Narcissa is glad that she doesn't take Rita seriously._

-

Her parents want the best for her, of course. The best school in Britain (France would be better, France is always better, but France did not want her), the best clothes, the best books, the best piano…

The best marks, though they say they only want her to get the marks they know she can.

"I don't expect you to copy Bellatrix, Cici, but I know you can do better than this. Your friends do so much better then you, and we all associate with people of the same intelligence as us."

Narcissa does not say, _I try._

Narcissa does not say, _Rita's my only friend._

Narcissa does not say a word.

-

_Rita says, of course you can write._

_Narcissa says, yes, but not the right kind of writing. You don't get good marks for writing stories._

_Rita says, fuck 'em, lovey. Come live with me. We'll run away to Spain or somewhere and live in a villa by ourselves and I'll be a famous journalist, feared across the Wizarding World for my exposés and you'll write wonderful, beautiful novels that'll change people's lives and oh, they'll love you, Cissa. My lovely Ice Princess, my Winter Queen-_

_Tzarina of Ice-Cream._

_Rita laughs, and Narcissa blushes and spoils her snowy looks. Cheery sauce on ice-cream cheeks, and Rita is enraptured. _

_So, coming with me to Spain?_

_Spain?_

_Or Italy. You wanna go to Venice?_

_Narcissa says, Venice would be lovely._

-

She hates going home. Every year, the walk up the hill takes longer and she goes slower and maybe one day she'll never make it.

Maybe. If she forgets her books and her clothes and her pretty bedroom and her lovely piano and she knows that she cannot leave. Dreams of Venice seem so out of place in her black and white world. _Rita_ seems so out of place. Too loud, too busy, too colourful, too open, too loving.

Too caring.

Lucius says, _je vous aime_ and Narcissa says _oui_ when she should say _non_, but she's always been a good girl.

-

_Rita's crying, quiet and ugly. This isn't how crying is supposed to be. It's supposed to be beautiful and poetic and tears sliding mutely down pale cheeks and eyes staring out into the distance as she walks away and never looks back. Rita's mascara has run behind her purple glasses, and Narcissa wants to die._

_Rita says, say something, lovey. Don't stand there so fucking mute. Say something, **damn you!**_

_Narcissa says, le cœur est amer parce qu'il aime_

_I didn't understand a bloody word of that._

_Not one?_

_I'm not fucking French, Cissa._

_A flinch at the nickname, but she can't start crying now._

_Rita says, I love you._

_Narcissa says, I know._

-

The wedding is set for summer when really it should be set for winter. A white winter wedding for an Icy Winter Queen. Ice Princess, Winter Queen.

Tzarina of Ice-Cream.

Narcissa sits by the window in the white fabric that will someday soon be her wedding robe and lightly drags a pin down her leg.

A white scratch on white skin; an icy lattice to stop her heart from breaking. Pain on the outside to kill the pain on the inside. Self-mutilation, self-harm.

Selfish.

-

_Mother says, oh, you look so beautiful._

_Bellatrix says, here, let me readjust your veil._

_Lucius says, I do._

_Narcissa says, I do._

_Rita says-_

_Nothing. _


End file.
